oh, thank you
well my code is exactly certain character wide but
when i use read line by line method
it seems to shrink it down
so if i type

cat emplist
Andrew Kim..........Daniel Kim
Henry Kim..........Danny Kim
Daniel Taegyun tk KimAndrew Kim

but read line then echo'ing it gives me
Andrew Kim.Daniel Kim
Henry Kim.Danny Kim
Daniel Taegyun tk KimAndrew Kim

is there -(something) statement that preserves the # #?
sorry my question is starting to go really long..
and I've replaced (space) with . thanks

ps. i'v tried # #? and # # is same as # #?

regards